Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has covered world politics and economics for 30 years, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels. He is now International Business Editor in London. Subscribe to the City Briefing e-mail.

Only the German people can renounce their sovereignty

So we wait for the Verfassungsgericht to deliver its verdict of life or death for the euro at 10 AM Wednesday, Karlsruhe time.

The German constitutional court is not to be trifled with. Its ruling on the Lisbon Treaty in June 2009 was a thunderous defence of German national sovereignty, the greatest legal shock to the European order since the launch of the Project in 1957.

The eight judges fired a cannon shot across the bows of Brussels and the European Court, asserting the supremacy of the German Grundgesetz over EU law as a permanent principle.

They reminded those with superstate pretensions that Europe's sovereign states are the "Masters of the Treaties" and not the other way round, and that the national parliaments are the only legitimate form of democracy.

They constructed a line of defence against any future trespass, ruling that certain fields "must forever remain under German control", including the power of the purse – the parliamentary prerogative over which the English Civil War was fought, and the American colonies pushed to revolution.

The court said Germany must be prepared to "refuse further participation in the European Union" if EU aggrandisement threatens German democracy any further.

In a sense the Verfassungsgericht is the only functioning supreme court for all EU citizens, given the European Court's habit of rubber stamping abuse of power (Connolly, Andreasen, Tillack), and given the craven behaviour of other national courts over the years – Ireland excepted. As a Briton, it is my court too in a sense.

Two years later they ruled again, this time on the EMU bailout machinery. They stated that the Bundestag may not alienate its budgetary powers to any "supra-national body" on a permanent basis, even if it wishes to. It cannot sign off on open-ended liabilities.

"The idea of a modern constitution is precisely to impose limits on political majorities", said Udo di Fabio, the author of the opinion.

Chief Justice Andreas Vosskuhle said at the time that Germany had reached the limits of EU integration under existing constitutional law. If the nation wishes to take the revolutionary step towards European fiscal union and shared government, it must first equip itself with a "new constitution". This would almost certainly require a popular vote.

On Wednesday they rule yet again, this time on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the €500bn – very permanent – bailout fund. It is widely assumed that the court will bow to massive political pressure and waive the fund through.

This may be so, but 37,000 plaintiffs have filed cases in a remarkable outburst of civic protest. They vary from the neo-Marxist Left Party, to the Democracy Now movement chaired by a former Social Democrat justice minister, to Bavaria's "Tory" Peter Gauweiler, with a small army of eurosceptic professors at the nerve-centre.

The Verfassungsgericht dates back to the 1490s , as the Reichskammergericht of the Holy Roman Empire. It lived on as the Staatsgerichthof under the Weimar Republic, when judges winked once too often as the rule of law was incrementally defiled, then lost.

Reinvented in its modern form in 1950 with the outer shell of the US Supreme Court, it has taken no chances since, ever vigilant against Putschist tendencies.

And surely there can be no greater Putsch in our time than the attempt to lead Germany by the nose into a fiscal union that must necessarily eviscerate German democracy, and must be authoritarian because there is no living legislature to hold a European central state to account, all done in the name of saving the euro.

There is an expression in Germany know as "Verfassungspatriotismus". Literally translated, it means "constitution patriotism". I can think of no other country where such a concept exists.

Germans have invested national pride in the top court – a substitute Kaiser – and everything that it stands for. Long may it last.

I do not know how the Court will rule, but nor do any of the analysts and pundits who say the judges must ratify the ESM because it would be unthinkable to do otherwise. And nor does Chancellor Merkel.

Udo di Fabio (grandson of an impoverished nobleman from the Abruzzi who found work in the Thyssen steel works, and for that reason culturally senstive to what makes a nation chohesive) told Corriere della Sera this morning that the judges themselves often do not know before they go into the chamber.

He then said: "If the nations of Europe want to establish a federal state, they should do so in a spirit of freedom, not driven by fiscal necessity."

"In Germany, this freedom presupposes that the definitive surrender of sovereignty under international law can only be decided by the people themselves," he said.

Quite so. Germany's leaders do not have the constitutional authority to take such a step. They are trustees only.

And finally, when asked if the judges would say yes because to act otherwise means the "death of the euro the next day", he replied:

"The judges will guard the constitution, but will also calculate the consequences of their decision. But are we certain that the euro will collapse if determined efforts to stabilize the markets turns out not be viable?